Award-Winning Food and Ice Cream with Riley

Transcript

Okay, who’s feeling a little hungry? Let’s go over to the Whitney dining hall and talk to Riley. He’s a double major in Biomedical Engineering and Spanish, who’s gonna tell us about the most important time of the day. Meal time! Riley what’s on the menu?

Hello, everyone! Leaving home for college is a really exciting experience. There are so many changes in your academic and social life. And let’s be honest, being away from home has a lot of wonderful advantages. But the one thing people don’t talk about a lot is often what they really miss the most – food. Those meals, snacks, take out places from back home that you grew up on. That being said, food is a huge factor for life at school. And here at UCONN, we have some amazing dining opportunities that do an excellent job of filling in for all that food from home.

The first thing you’ll notice when you come to UCONN is how many dining options you have. With any of our three different meal plans, you can eat as many times a day at our eight different dining halls. So in other words, you’ll never go hungry at UCONN. You can wake up in the morning and grab breakfast from our South dining hall. During the day, you can stop by any of our several different cafes or a student union marketplace for a quick lunch or a coffee. And for dinner, you might meet up with some of your friends at Northwest dining hall which, along with two other locations, has extended hours for any of those late night cravings you may have.

No matter where you end up eating at UCONN, there’s always gonna be kosher and halal options nearby. As well as a range of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free meal options. So no matter your preferences there’s aways something for you. UCONN dining services is consistently recognized for a wide range of awards. For example, we regularly rank amongst the top three universities with the best vegan recipe and have also nationally in the top 10 most accommodating gluten-free universities. We pride ourselves on the fact that Boston Children’s Medical Center created their menu based off of our own gluten-free program.

Additionally, as a campus, we’re always trying to reduce our environmental impact and our dining services is at the forefront of that movement. UCONN dining serves fresh, locally sourced produce, honey, jarred right here on campus, and even has their own robust composting program. All of which aim to reduce campus waste and emissions.

We’re also fortunate enough to have many off campus dining options as well. Several of which are within walking distance, or you can venture to those restaurants throughout the surrounding towns. My favorite off-campus spot, and one of the most popular among students is Downtown Storrs. Which has everything from a cafe, to pizza, to even some late night cookies. Speaking of sweetness, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of UCONN’s biggest attractions, our world famous Dairy Bar. Opened in 1953, the dairy bar serves ice cream made from the milk of the cows that graze right next door on Horsebarn Hill. My favorite flavor has to be black raspberry, but don’t just take my word for it. Come and try it yourself.

No matter your needs or preferences UCONN dining services is going to work extremely hard to make sure that all of their students’ desires are satisfied. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go grab some of that black raspberry ice cream. Back to you, Alex.

Riley, that all sounds delicious. And it’s great that UCONN is nationally recognized for its vegan and gluten-free options. It’s so crucial to have robust real food options for everyone. And I’ll definitely take your recommendation and swing by the dairy bar before I leave campus. For research purposes of course. Thanks for filling us in Riley.